Monstrous

Monstrous (2022) — watch online this American psychological horror film directed by Chris Sivertson, starring Christina Ricci. Set in the 1950s, it follows Laura, a woman who flees an abusive husband and relocates with her seven-year-old son Cody to an isolated rural house beside a lake. The pastel colours and period-perfect interiors feel deliberately wrong against what starts crawling out of the water at night.

Cody sees it first. Laura is already at her limit — holding a new life together through sheer will, dodging calls from a man she's afraid of — and her son's fear of the lake is one more thing she can't afford to look at directly. Ricci carries the film on the tension between a mother's determination and a mind that may be fracturing.

Sivertson is less interested in jump scares than in eroding the boundary between real threat and psychological collapse. The result works better than most straight monster movies precisely because it refuses to give you a clean answer. Stream Monstrous (2022) online on iFILM.